Furrows of the Stream: A Novel

By Oluwagbemiga Olowosoyo

A young lady, Tola, contends with her parents over inter-tribal and inter-class marriage. She insists that she should be allowed to marry Chris her lover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781105871511

Book preview

Furrows of the Stream: A Novel

Furrows of the Stream

Oluwagbemiga Olowosoyo

©2012 Oluwagbemiga Olowosoyo.

ISBN 978-1-105-87151-1

1 Grand Street,

Bridgeport.

CT 06604

Tel: [phone]

P. O. Box 36706,

Dugbe, Ibadan

Oyo State, Nigeria

Tel: [phone]

E. Mail: [e-mail]

Website: www.olowosoyo.org

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or be transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Bible quotes are from the King James Version unless otherwise stated.

Dedication

This book is dedicated

to

Ibijoke Fadesola Olowosoyo

my beloved wife.

God is so wise and kind to have led me to you. 

You are my precious gem

Chapter One

I will not hear that said any more.  Should every girl marry? I will fly in the sky like a bird. Tola said to herself.  She shifted her gaze off the simmering pot on the stove and turned to the poster on the wall.  In it, a bird flies away from a falling tree.  ‘One day, yes, one day, I‘ll fly into the sky, one day.’

The free bird had become her symbol for about ten years. She had actually spent her first salary at Orimolade Primary School to buy this poster.  Of course, she envies birds.  She had pasted the poster on the wall, directly opposite the bed.  And since the bed happens to be the singular furniture in the sparse room; any visitor has to meditate on the poster.  Every time she woke up from her sleep, she faced the wall and said, My little sister, some day I will fly like you.

When she finished her Teacher training education, she got a teaching job in Orimolade Primary School. She rented a room in the Ogbun-eri area of Isoro, to make things easier for her aged parents and for her freedom.  She sincerely suggested that her parents should allow one of her younger brothers to come and stay with her.  She thought she could, by so doing, reduce her parents’ responsibilities.  Her father was a carpenter with the Ministry of Works and Housing.  Her mother, who used to sell pepper at Gbeleju market until the market was moved some five kilometres out of town, is now a housewife and domestic farmer.

Without any doubt the parents needed help.  Feeding eight younger children was enough a problem.  Clothing and housing them was moreso.  However, neither of them would allow Tola to transmit her contagious disease into any of their younger children.  She was a member of Scripture Union.

Yesterday, she visited her parents like she did at the end of every month, she had become the financier of the family since her father was retrenched two years ago.  Two thirds of her salary goes to her parents while she tries to make ends meet with the remaining.

Her parents amused her.  What amazed Olutola most was the fact that her parents who ostracised her could spend her money willingly.

Often and often she thanked God that she was a born again Christian.  She was sure that if she hadn’t given her life to Jesus Christ, she would have bolted away like her step brother did.

Ironically, it is that same faith they detested in her.  Anyhow, she had realised that there would always be a time to disagree with one’s society, and that the proof of maturity is the ability to stand firm in such situation.

As she had done on few occasions, Tola preached to her parents about salvation.  Jesus said Come unto me all ye that labour, and..... I will give you rest... But her father, the old Muslim would not listen.  He cursed her, and called her the young Agemo who could not dance.  Then he summoned her into the inner chamber of the room: a small enclosure, carved out of the single room with a curtain.

‘Tola’ he called,‘sir’ ‘Tola’, ‘sir’.

‘Olutola’ he called a third time clearing his throat as it was fashionable amongst respected members of the society, How many times did I call you, he queried.

Thrice papa She replied.  I married your mother, when my first wife died.  And I could have married a second wife if I wanted, but my purse was very important as far as I was concerned.’

‘Rotimi, your stepbrother went away after he finished at the polytechnic.  And we have heard nothing from him ever since.

‘You are the eldest from your mother.  Therefore I did all I could to make you somebody in life, until you forsook the mosque and became an S.U’.

His voice quivered, and he paused to steady it.  Then he continued his unprepared speech.  Tola was almost moved to tears too.  She never imagined that she still loved her father that much, particularly since the day he forcefully undressed her and pushed her out of the house on the grounds of her conversion to Christianity.  As a matter of fact, she vowed never to enter the house again.  But the Bible would not allow that: love those who hate you and those who despitefully use you.

‘Meanwhile’ he threw her out of her meditation  ‘I should care less if you decide to destroy yourself, a chicken may never accept a cage as a protection.  But it is.  When problems befall you because of that your useless faith you will come calling".

‘Very well’, Tola thought, ‘we shall see’.

‘By the way, the important issue about a woman is who becomes her husband. Prepare yourself, very soon, you will move into your husband’s house.

‘Husband! which husband? who is the husband? I will not take any nonsense this time around .  I..."

She was shut up by a dirty slap from her father.  Although she was still agitated and very angry, the momentary loss of sight, the occasional sparks of star, and the murderous posture of her father who stood over her like a colossus, silenced her.

‘What is wrong with you? Idiot.  I spent all I ever earned sending you to school, only for you to come and throw words back at me, Idiot!’

He furiously paced the room.

Then he came back to her, pointing a menacing finger at her. ‘Enough, I don’t want any more nonsense from you.  Why do you think I sent you to school, by the way, to become a teacher?

That was yesterday.  And up till this moment she could not figure how she got back home, she was in a reverie.  She must have passed the stone image of a soldier at the former Gbeleju market.  The market had just become a military cemetery.  Her fascination for the ‘Stone Soldier’ had always been the fact that it looked exactly like her father.  It held a gun whereas her father carried a whip.

Some parents are like that, they vent their frustration on their helpless children.  They beat their children to establish their position in the society.  Some out of drunkenness hit their wives and children with all manner of weapons.  They dehumanise the whole family.  And unless a miracle happens children even become criminals as a result.

Tola’s father is a typical example of a father who dominates